Plagiarism and Copyright Infringement

Ethics – Year 1H. F. Gilbert, Ph.D.

Topics• Plagiarism

– Attribution of credit to Others– Responsible Citation– Paraphrasing– Self Plagiarism– Ghost Writing

• Copyright Protection– How to use copyrighted material– Fair Use Provision

Plagiarism

• Presenting the words and ideas of others as your own– It does not just apply to the exact words of

others– It also applies to other people’s ideas

• It applies to both written and spoken presentations

How common is plagiarism?

• Studied duplication, co-submission, and plagiarism• Used eTBLAST to compare text on 62,000 of 17

million medline abstracts over a 12 year period• Identified 421 potential duplicates then examined

manually– Duplicates with different authors – 0.04%

• Generally appeared much later than the original

– Duplicates with same authors – 1.35%• Generally appeared within a few months of each other

suggesting simultaneous submission

• Estimates suggests increasing trend over time as a fraction of total publications

Errami, M. & Garner, H. (2008) A tale of two citations. Nature 451, 397

Increases in Plagiarism

More literature

Change in attitude People more dishonest?

Change in technology Can download from the web

Avoiding Plagiarism

Give credit where credit is due

You are not expected to include only new ideas in your writing or talks

You are expected to know and reference the literature

Responsible Authorship• Writing and citation are professional skills

• Writing and citation is part of the professional practice

• effective citation shows– you belong to your community of science– you are well-versed in your own field- an

authority– you know what is “common knowledge” and what

is not

• To cite correctly you must – read the literature– develop professional skills

Benefits of Skillful Citation

Establish yourself as a knowledgeable reader

Develop credibility with your scientific peers

Earn respect and trust of those you cite

Samples of Citation

• According to Smith and Jones (12) …

• My work is in agreement with that published by Smith and Jones (12) in which they found…

• There was a 9 fold increase in RNA (12) …

Common Issues in Citation

• When do I quote?

• How do I paraphrase?

• What ideas do I need to cite?

• What about figures?

• What about references?

Using Straight Quotes– the exact words of someone with

no substantive change in meaning (i.e.) quotes should be in context

“With apologies to Charles Dickens, in the world of biomedical publications, "It is the best of times, it is the worst of times“ “(Erramir and Garner, 2008).

• Rarely used in science writing

Paraphrasing – expressing the ideas of others in your own words.

• Paraphrasing without citing the literature source of the idea is also considered plagiarism

• Don’t just change the order of the original words!– Read the papers (take your own notes if you need

to), set them aside, think about how you want to present the ideas or a summary of the ideas, then write it without looking at the paper(s)

– Outlines of the general ideas using words and phrases are useful in organizing want to write before writing it.

– Site the original source of the idea when paraphrasing

– Read any reference you cite

Which ideas should I cite?

• A, C, G and T are the four bases of DNA• Pasteur was the first to conceive of

attenuating a pathogen to make a vaccine.• The unfolded protein response is mediated by

the IRE1 endoribonuclease

How do I know which ideas are in the intellectual commons of my field?

• You have to be an intellectually active member of your field– Read contemporary articles– Read textbooks– Read reviews– Read history– Attend meetings– Attend journal clubs– Ask questions

Which ideas should I cite?• Ideas which I want to attribute to a

specific individual• Ideas that are not already in common

knowledge in your field (those likely to read your paper)

Read any article you cite to avoid dead end citations when the article whose citation you copied got it wrong

Citing unpublished work

• NMR studies by Ruddock and coworkers have provided evidence for a specific peptide binding site on PDI (Ruddock, L., personal communication)

• The person being cited should be asked for their permission

• Never use ideas that you learn as a reviewer of a grant or paper. The peer review process is confidential.

Dangerous Practice

Cutting and pasting anything from the internet or another source into a paper or anything you are writing.

Restrict cutting and pasting to a secondary document and never cut and paste (except for the citation itself) text, even methods into a grant, paper or abstract

You may forget you copied it!!

Self Plagiarism

• Expectation that journal articles, book chapters and books are original works

• Do not cut and paste text (including methods) from even your own papers

• Do not submit the same work to multiple journals at the same/similar time. It should be under consideration by one journal at a time

Ghost Writing

• Presenting work written by an unacknowledged, often compensated, writer as your own (arguably plagiarism).

• Using an expert, often paid, to serve as a “front” to conceal the true author of the work or to add credibility– Estimated that 11-25% of articles in medical

journals concerning pharmaceuticals were ghost written or had honorary authors (K. Jirik, Bioethics Forum, 12/28/2006)http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Bioethicsforum/Post.aspx?id=326)

Copyright

• Copyright is a legal process protecting the intellectual property rights of publishing companies and sometimes authors.

• It defines ownership of written and performed work including publications, computer code, music, videos, etc.

• Even if you site the source you should not use a figure from a published article, book without permission of the copyright holder (often the journal)

Copyright Infringement

• Includes protected software:major problems with software copyright violations

It is illegal to give away protected software

• Forget Peer to Peer sharing sites including videos and music

• Stiff penalties, surveillance of computers• Prohibited on BCM computers

Getting permission to use copyrighted material

Most/all journals require the authors to assign the copyright of the published work to the journal.

If you want to use a figure from another paper in a review article you are writing, or in your thesis, you must obtain permission from the copyright holder AND cite it correctly (used/adapted with permission from Ref 12)

Applies even to figures from your own papers.Applies to figures you have redrawn based on

an original figure

Getting permission to use copyrighted material

Most journals have a permission-granting function on the journal’s web site.

Keep a copy of the permission notification in case you are ever asked for it

Fair Use• Copyright law does permit the use of copyrighted

material in a limited way.– You can make copies of an article for personal use and

limited, one time circulation to others– You can use (with citation) a copy of a figure from a paper,

book in a slide presentation or lecture unless it becomes “permanently” incorporated

• Safest policy for multiple uses is to get permission– If it is a “permanent” addition to a lecture given over and

over– If a copy is to be distributed to a class on a recurring basis

(here the proper procedure is to provide the class with the reference and let them look it up or get their own copy